Where I am at least the giant clock has ticked over from 23:59:59 to
00:00:00 meaning that the old year has ended and the new one has begun.
2014 began with scenes of almost medieval warfare in the streets of
Ukraine's capital Kiev as neo-Nazi and Nazi thugs battled with the
police. Eventually this rioting became so severe that the Ukrainian
government was overthrown and the fascists took control of large parts
of the country. This plunged the nation into civil war as the fascists
tried to purge the country of ethnic Russians and the ethnic Russians
fought back. That war continues as I write and has left at least 5,000
people dead and forced more the 1 million people to flee their homes,
often into Russia.
Within two weeks of the collapse of the Ukrainian government Malaysia
Airlines flight MH370 disappeared on a flight between Malaysia and
China. To this day the plane and the 239 people on board remain missing.
Malaysia Airlines suffered another unfortunate accident in July when
flight MH17 veered off course over Ukraine's civil war and was shot down
either by a missile fired from the ground or by a missile fired by a
Ukrainian air force jet. Whatever the cause 298 people lost their lives
that day.
By the time MH17 crashed Israel and Palestine were already engaged in a
50 day war in Gaza. Those 50 days of war claimed the lives of 2,127
Palestinians and 66 Israelis although that figure rises to 76 if you
include the soldiers who committed suicide after the war had officially
ended.
Just across the border from Israel in Syria the Islamic State of Iraq
and the Levant (ISIL) continued their genocidal rampage and expanded it
to include much of Iraq. Through suicide bombings, executions and
massacre ISIL have so far killed in excess of 9,000 people in Iraq alone
and almost succeeded in wiping out the entire Yezidi religion and the
wider Kurdish ethnic group before the US was begrudgingly forced to
intervene. Despite almost 5 months of bombing that US-led coalition has
barely succeeded in halting ISIL's advance let alone defeated them.
The rise of ISIL was nearly matched by the expansion of Boko Haram in
Nigeria and Cameroon and Al-Shabaab in Somalia who have also began
mounting attacks in neighbouring Kenya. Pakistan which is long used to
Islamist violence also saw the worst terror attack in its history when
the Pakistani Taliban attacked a school in Peshawar killing at least 132
people - the majority of them children.
While all this has been going on the Ebola virus has ravaged the west
African nations of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea destroying pretty
much everything it touches and killing at least 7,890 people so far.
So if I had to raise a toast to send 2014 on it's way I would say simply; "Good f*cking riddance."
If I had to pick a highlight the year though it would obviously be the
summer World Cup in Brazil. If I had to choose a cultural highlight it
would be the ceremonies of the Olympic and Para-Olympic games in Sochi,
Russia because it was nice to work with something of quality for a
change.
(Originally Posted) 01:30 on 1/1/15 (UK date).
Sunday, 4 January 2015
Wow, Palestine's a State.
Perhaps because they'd taken the BBC's "The Honourable Woman" a little
bit too literally the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Israel - no, sorry the
Fatah controlled Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank - responded
to the summer's war in Gaza by tonight finally forcing through a vote
on Palestinian statehood at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).
Obviously I am somewhat less then impressed that they're asking me to
deal with this on a Tuesday night when, as always, I've been to the pub.
Although due to the festive break I didn't get the opportunity to obtain let alone study the blue text I understand that despite French attempts to soften the proposal the motion tabled by Jordan still required Israel to withdraw within the 1967 borders by, my lord, 2017. If you've had a look at the state of Israeli politics in the aftermath of the summer war you would know that this is simply not possible. On a related note although mine is an endorsement Netenyahu could probably live without I think all Israelis should think long and hard about the size of man they're trying to get rid off.
Honestly I think the best outcome of a resolution being adopted would have been for Israel to look around the room and go; "Supported ISIL in Syria, Supported the UIA in Ukraine, Supported Boko Haram in Nigeria, Killed Qaddafi in Libya, Looked at Hitler in Germany and considered him a jolly nice chap. I think this is just another UN resolution we can safely ignore."
The worst outcome would be that when the next Islamic Jihad missile lands in Israel for Israel to go; "Oh look, the newly formed Palestinian state has just declared war on us. Under international law we can now invade and occupy "Palestine" until such a time as we know longer consider them a threat. In the meantime they will be expected to submit their INDC's to the UNFCCC in the first quarter of 2015."
Obviously then everyone knew that this was a stupid idea. However being vicious anti-Semites and proud Zionists as long as the al-Sauds run Zion the UK quietly supported the motion through the UNSC and UK Commonwealth members Rwanda and Nigeria. Rather then having the motion pass the UK' intention here was to put pressure on the US to veto because Obama is both a vicious anti-Semite and generally a bit of a coward. With question marks being raised over the US veto at the last minute Nigeria reversed their support to an abstention meaning that the motion fell just one vote short of the 9 vote majority that would require a veto. The UK need not have bothered though because at the very last minute the US decided to cast their veto carrying "No" vote. Australia also voted no but despite the infection no-one's ever really voted their balls.
While all this was going on I was actually watching the BBC's "Charlie Brooker's 2014 Wipe" which if you saw the Sochi 2014 Olympic Opening Ceremony you would understand is essential viewing. Despite the fact that he clearly went in hard on my little brother during the "Pharrell William's Happy is great music to run over your dog to" skit I'm going to be charitable and assume that he gave over part of the show to Adam Curtis and his "Power of Nightmares" foolishness to highlight the type of conspiracy theorist lunacy he'd be forced to accept if he was left working for Channel 4 and The Guardian newspaper full time.
After all it's quite clear Vladislav Surkov only published the article to highlight what the US is doing in Ukraine. The reason why the rest of the news is so unrelentingly miserable is that since 2010 the UK's been run by a bunch of mentals and so far Obama's been too cowardly to say "No."
00:15 on 31/12/14 (UK date).
Edited at around 12:10 on 31/12/14 (UK date) to add;
I've now had a good sleep and the alcohol induced headache is starting to fade. However my position on last night's vote has not changed.
As I've said throughout in order to achieve statehood Palestine must first build a functioning state in all but name. Only then can the Palestinians starting requesting that other nations recognise their state. Therefore true progress will come not from big and dramatic votes at the UNSC but a series of small agreements that strengthen the PA. Off the top of my head I would say that agreements that allow the PA to issue deeds of ownership and other building permits along with taking more responsibility for security in what will become the Palestinian state seem particularly important areas.
This very confrontational campaign for UN recognition actually seems to make that less likely. Although certainly not all Israeli Jews are are aggressive Zionist settlers people with those views make up a significant constituency within Israeli politics. The thing that the Palestinians seem unable to understand is that Israel is a democracy therefore if the government does something a large proportion of the population does not like the people will simply change the government. Through the 1995 assassination of Yitzhak Rabin it is clear that some Jewish extremists are prepared to go even further then that and simply kill Prime Ministers they don't agree with.
By aggressively pursuing the issue of statehood at the UN and in effect handing Israel a list of demands the Palestinians are substantially provoking the Jewish extremists. In response the extremists will themselves become even more aggressive and their demands will become even more extreme. This makes it next to impossible for the Israeli government to make the series of compromises that are required to allow Palestine to achieve statehood.
Then of course there is the issue of the extra responsibilities that statehood will place on the Palestinians. The one I obviously immediately think off is the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) but there are also a host of other international agreements that on becoming a state Palestine must immediately abide by. If a Palestinian state cannot abide by those conventions then often there will be immediate and serious consequences. For example if rockets were to be fired from a Palestinian state rather then an Israeli occupied territory it would be viewed as an act of aggressive war. That would immediately invalidate Palestinian statehood and allow Israel - or any other nation being attacked - to invade and occupy Palestine until such a time as they are satisfied that the threat has been eliminated.
Sadly looking at the way that Palestine is now with it being divided between Fatah and Hamas and government wages not getting paid because of internal feuds I simply don't think that Palestine is ready to take on the responsibilities that statehood brings.
(Originally Posted on 31/12/14 - UK date).
Although due to the festive break I didn't get the opportunity to obtain let alone study the blue text I understand that despite French attempts to soften the proposal the motion tabled by Jordan still required Israel to withdraw within the 1967 borders by, my lord, 2017. If you've had a look at the state of Israeli politics in the aftermath of the summer war you would know that this is simply not possible. On a related note although mine is an endorsement Netenyahu could probably live without I think all Israelis should think long and hard about the size of man they're trying to get rid off.
Honestly I think the best outcome of a resolution being adopted would have been for Israel to look around the room and go; "Supported ISIL in Syria, Supported the UIA in Ukraine, Supported Boko Haram in Nigeria, Killed Qaddafi in Libya, Looked at Hitler in Germany and considered him a jolly nice chap. I think this is just another UN resolution we can safely ignore."
The worst outcome would be that when the next Islamic Jihad missile lands in Israel for Israel to go; "Oh look, the newly formed Palestinian state has just declared war on us. Under international law we can now invade and occupy "Palestine" until such a time as we know longer consider them a threat. In the meantime they will be expected to submit their INDC's to the UNFCCC in the first quarter of 2015."
Obviously then everyone knew that this was a stupid idea. However being vicious anti-Semites and proud Zionists as long as the al-Sauds run Zion the UK quietly supported the motion through the UNSC and UK Commonwealth members Rwanda and Nigeria. Rather then having the motion pass the UK' intention here was to put pressure on the US to veto because Obama is both a vicious anti-Semite and generally a bit of a coward. With question marks being raised over the US veto at the last minute Nigeria reversed their support to an abstention meaning that the motion fell just one vote short of the 9 vote majority that would require a veto. The UK need not have bothered though because at the very last minute the US decided to cast their veto carrying "No" vote. Australia also voted no but despite the infection no-one's ever really voted their balls.
While all this was going on I was actually watching the BBC's "Charlie Brooker's 2014 Wipe" which if you saw the Sochi 2014 Olympic Opening Ceremony you would understand is essential viewing. Despite the fact that he clearly went in hard on my little brother during the "Pharrell William's Happy is great music to run over your dog to" skit I'm going to be charitable and assume that he gave over part of the show to Adam Curtis and his "Power of Nightmares" foolishness to highlight the type of conspiracy theorist lunacy he'd be forced to accept if he was left working for Channel 4 and The Guardian newspaper full time.
After all it's quite clear Vladislav Surkov only published the article to highlight what the US is doing in Ukraine. The reason why the rest of the news is so unrelentingly miserable is that since 2010 the UK's been run by a bunch of mentals and so far Obama's been too cowardly to say "No."
00:15 on 31/12/14 (UK date).
Edited at around 12:10 on 31/12/14 (UK date) to add;
I've now had a good sleep and the alcohol induced headache is starting to fade. However my position on last night's vote has not changed.
As I've said throughout in order to achieve statehood Palestine must first build a functioning state in all but name. Only then can the Palestinians starting requesting that other nations recognise their state. Therefore true progress will come not from big and dramatic votes at the UNSC but a series of small agreements that strengthen the PA. Off the top of my head I would say that agreements that allow the PA to issue deeds of ownership and other building permits along with taking more responsibility for security in what will become the Palestinian state seem particularly important areas.
This very confrontational campaign for UN recognition actually seems to make that less likely. Although certainly not all Israeli Jews are are aggressive Zionist settlers people with those views make up a significant constituency within Israeli politics. The thing that the Palestinians seem unable to understand is that Israel is a democracy therefore if the government does something a large proportion of the population does not like the people will simply change the government. Through the 1995 assassination of Yitzhak Rabin it is clear that some Jewish extremists are prepared to go even further then that and simply kill Prime Ministers they don't agree with.
By aggressively pursuing the issue of statehood at the UN and in effect handing Israel a list of demands the Palestinians are substantially provoking the Jewish extremists. In response the extremists will themselves become even more aggressive and their demands will become even more extreme. This makes it next to impossible for the Israeli government to make the series of compromises that are required to allow Palestine to achieve statehood.
Then of course there is the issue of the extra responsibilities that statehood will place on the Palestinians. The one I obviously immediately think off is the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) but there are also a host of other international agreements that on becoming a state Palestine must immediately abide by. If a Palestinian state cannot abide by those conventions then often there will be immediate and serious consequences. For example if rockets were to be fired from a Palestinian state rather then an Israeli occupied territory it would be viewed as an act of aggressive war. That would immediately invalidate Palestinian statehood and allow Israel - or any other nation being attacked - to invade and occupy Palestine until such a time as they are satisfied that the threat has been eliminated.
Sadly looking at the way that Palestine is now with it being divided between Fatah and Hamas and government wages not getting paid because of internal feuds I simply don't think that Palestine is ready to take on the responsibilities that statehood brings.
(Originally Posted on 31/12/14 - UK date).
The End of Year Review Show.
Now Christmas day has gone even the Jews accept that the official year
is coming to an end and the new one is about to begin. For many people
this is a time to reflect on the year that has passed and look towards
the year that is to come. I myself have recently tried to get into the
spirit of things through the relatively new tradition of re-reading
everything I've written over the past year and archiving it in my much
tidier library at http://100badones.blogspot.co.uk/
Fortunately this year I was particularly organised so have already managed to archive the first quarter of 2014. Unfortunately this means I won't be going back over how following Irina Rodnina's carrying of the Olympic torch during the Sochi Winter Olympic opening ceremony and the start of the US overthrowing of Ukraine's government casual racism became a convenient way for nations to express their concern that US President Barack Obama isn't particularly good at his job. Given the fact the levels of racism quickly reached impressive heights it should hardly be a surprise that Obama's campaign strategy for November's US mid-term election of calling anyone who criticised him a racist failed so dramatically.
I will though get a chance to look back at both the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 which cost 239 - mainly Chinese - lives and the suspicious crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine which cost 298 people their lives. Although the majority shareholder of Malaysia Airlines is the Malaysian government these aren't even the biggest controversies surrounding Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak at the moment. Despite his nation suffering some of the worst flooding in a generation Razak has been far more interested in celebrating the Christmas break by playing golf with US President Obama in Hawaii. I'm actually a bit surprised this story hasn't received more coverage because surely there is a way to diplomatically isolate Malaysia over the 537 deaths that falls between all out war and Obama inviting their Prime Minister to join him on a family vacation.
One story I won't be reviewing because I didn't get to cover it at the time is the end of "Mare Nostrum" - an Italian led but European Union (EU) support mission to rescue illegal immigrants who have got into trouble trying to cross the Mediterranean sea from Africa. It has been replaced by "Triton" which will only patrol 48km (30 miles) from the Italian coast and won't be supported by the UK thus making the Mediterranean's reputation as "The Graveyard of Europe" much worse. The EU will though continue to support policies that are not only intended to destroy many African nations such as Libya but also tear the EU itself to pieces.
I have though decided that I won't be archiving the World Cup because I didn't consider that work.
14:40 on 28/12/14 (UK date).
Edited at around 19:35 on 28/12/14 (UK date) to add;
Today I seriously overslept waking up at around 12:30. So not only did I not have time to have breakfast I didn't really have time to work out what my first instinct about all this was.
However the immediate suspicion falls on Indonesia where QZ8501 took off from. The assumption being that they were trying to express their anger that Razak had been so honoured by a US President who spent his early life in Indonesia. However the next suspicion falls on Malaysia which although certainly a private company Air Asia operates from. The assumption being that Malaysia was trying to spread the blame around by making it look like Indonesia were getting angry in order to reduce the fear that passengers of Malaysia Airlines their consent to be killed which is obviously putting pressure on the business model of the state owned flag carrier.
That said the whole thing still feels to me so utterly random that much like Phil Hughes' death it might actually have been just random dumb luck.
On a somewhat related note if you're looking for more information why December 31st is officially considered the last day of the year I suggest you read up on the 1917 Anglo-French Conference on Time-Keeping at Sea. After all it is something to do but with the conference lasting 8 years no-one's in a rush to revisit that particular treaty.
(Originally Posted on 28/12/14 - UK date).
Fortunately this year I was particularly organised so have already managed to archive the first quarter of 2014. Unfortunately this means I won't be going back over how following Irina Rodnina's carrying of the Olympic torch during the Sochi Winter Olympic opening ceremony and the start of the US overthrowing of Ukraine's government casual racism became a convenient way for nations to express their concern that US President Barack Obama isn't particularly good at his job. Given the fact the levels of racism quickly reached impressive heights it should hardly be a surprise that Obama's campaign strategy for November's US mid-term election of calling anyone who criticised him a racist failed so dramatically.
I will though get a chance to look back at both the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 which cost 239 - mainly Chinese - lives and the suspicious crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine which cost 298 people their lives. Although the majority shareholder of Malaysia Airlines is the Malaysian government these aren't even the biggest controversies surrounding Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak at the moment. Despite his nation suffering some of the worst flooding in a generation Razak has been far more interested in celebrating the Christmas break by playing golf with US President Obama in Hawaii. I'm actually a bit surprised this story hasn't received more coverage because surely there is a way to diplomatically isolate Malaysia over the 537 deaths that falls between all out war and Obama inviting their Prime Minister to join him on a family vacation.
One story I won't be reviewing because I didn't get to cover it at the time is the end of "Mare Nostrum" - an Italian led but European Union (EU) support mission to rescue illegal immigrants who have got into trouble trying to cross the Mediterranean sea from Africa. It has been replaced by "Triton" which will only patrol 48km (30 miles) from the Italian coast and won't be supported by the UK thus making the Mediterranean's reputation as "The Graveyard of Europe" much worse. The EU will though continue to support policies that are not only intended to destroy many African nations such as Libya but also tear the EU itself to pieces.
I have though decided that I won't be archiving the World Cup because I didn't consider that work.
14:40 on 28/12/14 (UK date).
Edited at around 19:35 on 28/12/14 (UK date) to add;
Today I seriously overslept waking up at around 12:30. So not only did I not have time to have breakfast I didn't really have time to work out what my first instinct about all this was.
However the immediate suspicion falls on Indonesia where QZ8501 took off from. The assumption being that they were trying to express their anger that Razak had been so honoured by a US President who spent his early life in Indonesia. However the next suspicion falls on Malaysia which although certainly a private company Air Asia operates from. The assumption being that Malaysia was trying to spread the blame around by making it look like Indonesia were getting angry in order to reduce the fear that passengers of Malaysia Airlines their consent to be killed which is obviously putting pressure on the business model of the state owned flag carrier.
That said the whole thing still feels to me so utterly random that much like Phil Hughes' death it might actually have been just random dumb luck.
On a somewhat related note if you're looking for more information why December 31st is officially considered the last day of the year I suggest you read up on the 1917 Anglo-French Conference on Time-Keeping at Sea. After all it is something to do but with the conference lasting 8 years no-one's in a rush to revisit that particular treaty.
(Originally Posted on 28/12/14 - UK date).
On the Second Day of Christmas...
...I came home and had a bath.
You may remember that last year I very nobly decided to spend Christmas at home with just my father for company. This was obviously because I was concerned about him getting lonely at this festive time and nothing to do with the fact I was far too tired to bother with anything. This year I made the first trip to spend Christmas with my mothers down in Salisbury. Again this was purely because I thought it was important to be around loved ones at this time of year and not at all because their house is far nicer then mine.
The big attraction this year was that my brother's girlfriend joined us and growing up in a Muslim household she'd never celebrated Christmas. Obviously Christmas in my lesbian mother's house which is right by Stonehenge isn't a particularly religious event. It was though quite fun watching a fully grow adult experience Christmas for the first time. Sadly though my suggestion of giving the couple the full childhood Christmas experience by sending them to bed by nine in the evening after having hung up their Christmas stockings and left mince pies, sherry and carrots out for Santa and his reindeer was over-ruled.
Also my mother's have a Cocker Spaniel. As the writers of Downton Abbey know Cocker's are gun dogs meaning they're bred to chase game out of the bushes and then wait while the Pheasants are shot before bringing the game back to their owners. This means that they're very, very busy dogs who always have to be running around doing something and if they're not doing that they always need to be near the humans. Perhaps because of her Muslim upbringing my brother's girlfriend is terrified of dogs which as far as the dog was concerned instantly made her the most interesting human in the house. As a result I spent most of my time with a dog lead tied around my wrist while sitting on the sofa trying to play a game known as; "Sitting down quietly." This actually suited me perfectly but doesn't make for the most action packed anecdote.
In terms of presents I'm not going to go into what everybody got mainly because my approach was very firmly in the "F*ck it you're all getting gift cards" school. I did though get the first season of "Orange is the New Black" on DVD which I very nearly brought for myself a few weeks ago so I quite literally got exactly what I wanted for Christmas. I did though decide that sitting down to watch it with my mothers would probably cross a line.
15:55 on 26/12/14 (UK date).
Edited at around 19:10 on 28/12/14 (UK date) to add;
Despite arriving at London Paddington yesterday (27/12/14) on the South West Trains service from Exeter St Davids my brother has finally visited my father for Christmas. So we all went to the pub. Obviously my brother's girlfriend wasn't invited because as she grew up in a Muslim household my father simply refuses to acknowledge her existence. Bear that in mind the next time I say that even my father is shocked by the fact the Jewish Underground were allowed to get away with it.
(Originally Posted on 26/12/14 - UK date).
You may remember that last year I very nobly decided to spend Christmas at home with just my father for company. This was obviously because I was concerned about him getting lonely at this festive time and nothing to do with the fact I was far too tired to bother with anything. This year I made the first trip to spend Christmas with my mothers down in Salisbury. Again this was purely because I thought it was important to be around loved ones at this time of year and not at all because their house is far nicer then mine.
The big attraction this year was that my brother's girlfriend joined us and growing up in a Muslim household she'd never celebrated Christmas. Obviously Christmas in my lesbian mother's house which is right by Stonehenge isn't a particularly religious event. It was though quite fun watching a fully grow adult experience Christmas for the first time. Sadly though my suggestion of giving the couple the full childhood Christmas experience by sending them to bed by nine in the evening after having hung up their Christmas stockings and left mince pies, sherry and carrots out for Santa and his reindeer was over-ruled.
Also my mother's have a Cocker Spaniel. As the writers of Downton Abbey know Cocker's are gun dogs meaning they're bred to chase game out of the bushes and then wait while the Pheasants are shot before bringing the game back to their owners. This means that they're very, very busy dogs who always have to be running around doing something and if they're not doing that they always need to be near the humans. Perhaps because of her Muslim upbringing my brother's girlfriend is terrified of dogs which as far as the dog was concerned instantly made her the most interesting human in the house. As a result I spent most of my time with a dog lead tied around my wrist while sitting on the sofa trying to play a game known as; "Sitting down quietly." This actually suited me perfectly but doesn't make for the most action packed anecdote.
In terms of presents I'm not going to go into what everybody got mainly because my approach was very firmly in the "F*ck it you're all getting gift cards" school. I did though get the first season of "Orange is the New Black" on DVD which I very nearly brought for myself a few weeks ago so I quite literally got exactly what I wanted for Christmas. I did though decide that sitting down to watch it with my mothers would probably cross a line.
15:55 on 26/12/14 (UK date).
Edited at around 19:10 on 28/12/14 (UK date) to add;
Despite arriving at London Paddington yesterday (27/12/14) on the South West Trains service from Exeter St Davids my brother has finally visited my father for Christmas. So we all went to the pub. Obviously my brother's girlfriend wasn't invited because as she grew up in a Muslim household my father simply refuses to acknowledge her existence. Bear that in mind the next time I say that even my father is shocked by the fact the Jewish Underground were allowed to get away with it.
(Originally Posted on 26/12/14 - UK date).
What A Smashing Christmas.
As the Earth orbits the Sun every year it tilts on its axis. So towards
the end of June the northern hemisphere is facing the Sun meaning that
the days are long, the temperatures are warm and everybody is happy.
However towards the end of December the northern hemisphere is facing
away from the Sun meaning that the days are short, the temperatures are
cold and everybody is miserable.
To break up the unrelenting misery of winter the ancient inhabitants of the northern hemisphere used to celebrate the winter solstice (when the earth is at maximum tilt) by dancing, feasting and generally setting fire to things in an effort to chase away the darkness. Being an army of occupation the Romans decided to hijack this Pagan festival by pretending Jesus Christ was born close to the winter solstice thus turning it into a Christian festival in an effort to better control the natives. Similarly they also decided to pretend that the much more important death and resurrection of Christ (Easter) occurred during the spring equinox which is the mid-way point between the winter and summer solstices. I'm pretty sure this was all being covered in the closing ceremony for the 2012 Para-Olympic games up until the point Jay-Z turned up ruining it for everyone.
Regardless of what you call it in the run-up to this big winter festival the darkness, the cold and the stress of preparing makes everyone a bit depressed causing them to become a little crazy. This year the mayhem began in the US because their November Thanksgiving festival seems designed to make the insanity begin that little bit earlier every year.
The first such incident occurred in the Los Angeles suburb of Alhambra on December 15th (15/12/14) when a car smashed into a crowd gathered to watch a light display injuring 11. Three days later (18/12/14) another car smashed into a crowd that was leaving a Christmas Church service in Redondo Beach just outside Los Angeles killing three and injuring nine. In the run up to the winter festival celebrations people tend to drink heavily and then some of them choose to drive. Due to the number of accidents it causes this drink driving has been subject to massive public education campaigns in the UK and Europe so has become totally unacceptable in the public opinion. However in the US which is a much more car dependent society the message still hasn't got through. As a result everyone was happy to put these incidents in America down to simply human stupidity rather then anything more organised.
Unfortunately France then started experience problems. The first of these occurred on the solstice itself (21/12/14) when a man walked into a police station in Tours and stabbed three police officers before being shot and killed by the police. Despite the fact the man shouted "God is Great" in Arabic (Allah Akbar) during the attack and is a recent convert to Islam I pretty much assumed this was just a suicide by cop. After all if you don't understand its ecological origins and don't drink alcohol it can be quite hard to get into the spirit of the winter festival magnifying the depressing effects of winter. I think this effect was also a trigger in the shooting of two police officers in New York City, US on the same day but in that case there were also substantially larger contributing factors. It has though since emerged that the Tours attacker was a keen online follower of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) so I might have to look at that again although there is a huge overlap between people with severe mental health problems and supporters of ISIL. In fact you could go so far as to say that around 98-99% of ISIL supporters have severe mental health problems.
The following day (22/12/14) a driver rammed his van into pedestrians in the French city of Dijon injuring 11. On a technical level this is very similar to the type of run-over terror attacks that have become frequent in Israel in the latter half of 2014 and we saw in Canada on October 20th (20/10/14) However despite the fact the driver also shouted Allah Akbar and claimed he was acting in support of the children of Palestine as far as I can tell he had no links to either Islam nor ISIL. However he has got very strong links with mental health services in France. Therefore his motivations could be something as incomprehensible as simply seeing news of the Tours incident on TV and deciding that it was a coded message from the lizard people that secretly control the world that he should also act.
Sadly though someone in the UK clearly got paranoid that the French had spotted something about the similar incidents in the US and had put on the Tours and Dijon incidents in order to have a coded discussion with the US. So the UK decided to try and muscle in on this imagined conversation by smashing a garbage truck ("bin lorry" locally) into pedestrians in and around Saint George's (A Turkish Crusader) Square in Glasgow, Scotland killing 6 and injuring 10.
Again on a technical level the St George's crash is exactly the same as a run-over terror attack. Added to that when I talk about Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Devices (VBIED's) being used by ISIL in Kobane I'm talking about a truck of that size packed with explosives. The route the truck took is very similar to the route a VBIED took from Turkey into Kobane on November 29th (29/11/14) along a road that is usually closed by the Turkish military. Also "bin" is commonly used in Arabic names to indicate "son of" or "originating from" - "Osama bin Laden" being probably the most famous example. Not being very good at Arabic many foreign fighters who have joined ISIL give themselves ridiculous Arab names. Therefore hearing about "Glasgow bin Lorry" you couldn't help but wonder if an ISIL moron was involved. Finally I strongly suspect that the UK intelligence services refer to the mechanism they set up to send no hopers to fight for ISIL as; "The Garbage Truck." If we're looking for suspects I would look closely at the drivers work colleagues particularly his shift supervisor because if you're dealing with someone whose obese, smokes and drinks too much inducing a cardiac arrest is just a matter of picking the right words at the right moment.
Shortly after the St George's crash another French driver smashed into a crowd of pedestrians in Nantes killing we now know 1 and injuring 9. On this occasion the driver also shouted Allah Akbar and not only appears to have attacked a Christmas market but also specifically targeted a stall selling mulled wine which is obvious haram in Islam. However it is not yet clear whether he was simply someone who was made very angry about the darkness and his own confusion over Christmas or whether he was a fully fledged supporter of ISIL who was angered by France's role in the US-led coalition which along with the Kurds is currently giving ISIL a very hard time of it.
This though is the problem with this type of lone-wolf, run-over attack. Even within Palestine no-one plans them or orders them instead they simply put the idea out there into the public consciousness in the hope something will happen. This is exactly what Al Sharpton was doing during his speech to the "Justice For All" march on December 13th (13/12/14) in which he smirked about different parts of the 'movement' embracing different methods while protesters in the New York City "Justice For All" march chanted; "What do we want?! Dead Cops! When do we want it?! Now!"
France is particularly vulnerable to this type of lone-wolf attack for a number of reasons. The main one of these is a lack of social cohesion caused by a lack of an effective urban development policy. Basically French city centres are occupied only by the rich with the poor being forced to live in suburbs on the outskirts. Pretty much every year these poor suburbs whose inhabitants are overwhelmingly black and often Muslims explode into violence and rioting. This problem has been made worse by some awful economic policies of French President Hollande which has sent unemployment and poverty soaring further damaging social cohesion and leading to the rise of the fascist National Front (FN) Party. Sadly just as Hollande realised his mistake and reversed his damaging economic policies the European Union (EU) decided that it wanted to go along with the US' plan to destroy the EU economy, sorry er, "Punish Russia for its aggression in Ukraine."
Added to these serious structural problems and FN's rampant Islamophobia France's involvement in fighting the new breed of Islamist in Mali and now Iraq has led to many of France's young, black Muslims to feel that their country doesn't want them and it at war with them. Seeing everyone busy sinning and celebrating an ostensibly Christian festival only adds to that feeling of isolation. It must be said though that France hasn't done itself any favours by being overly dramatic about Israel's treatment of the Palestinians in an effort to muscle it's way into peace negotiations. For example France has sponsered the Palestinians ill-concieved bid for statehood that it wants to bring before the United Nations Secuirty Council (UNSC) on Christmas Eve of all days.
I wish I could be more reassuring to the people of France but this seems set to continue with the French police today stopping a man armed with two shotguns from mounting another attack and the army being deployed to help maintain security. So basically what everyone's hoping for from Christmas this year is for US President Obama to finally grow the f*ck up and get his a*se into gear because ISIL should have already been defeated by now.
(Originally Posted) 17:20 on 23/12/14 (UK date).
To break up the unrelenting misery of winter the ancient inhabitants of the northern hemisphere used to celebrate the winter solstice (when the earth is at maximum tilt) by dancing, feasting and generally setting fire to things in an effort to chase away the darkness. Being an army of occupation the Romans decided to hijack this Pagan festival by pretending Jesus Christ was born close to the winter solstice thus turning it into a Christian festival in an effort to better control the natives. Similarly they also decided to pretend that the much more important death and resurrection of Christ (Easter) occurred during the spring equinox which is the mid-way point between the winter and summer solstices. I'm pretty sure this was all being covered in the closing ceremony for the 2012 Para-Olympic games up until the point Jay-Z turned up ruining it for everyone.
Regardless of what you call it in the run-up to this big winter festival the darkness, the cold and the stress of preparing makes everyone a bit depressed causing them to become a little crazy. This year the mayhem began in the US because their November Thanksgiving festival seems designed to make the insanity begin that little bit earlier every year.
The first such incident occurred in the Los Angeles suburb of Alhambra on December 15th (15/12/14) when a car smashed into a crowd gathered to watch a light display injuring 11. Three days later (18/12/14) another car smashed into a crowd that was leaving a Christmas Church service in Redondo Beach just outside Los Angeles killing three and injuring nine. In the run up to the winter festival celebrations people tend to drink heavily and then some of them choose to drive. Due to the number of accidents it causes this drink driving has been subject to massive public education campaigns in the UK and Europe so has become totally unacceptable in the public opinion. However in the US which is a much more car dependent society the message still hasn't got through. As a result everyone was happy to put these incidents in America down to simply human stupidity rather then anything more organised.
Unfortunately France then started experience problems. The first of these occurred on the solstice itself (21/12/14) when a man walked into a police station in Tours and stabbed three police officers before being shot and killed by the police. Despite the fact the man shouted "God is Great" in Arabic (Allah Akbar) during the attack and is a recent convert to Islam I pretty much assumed this was just a suicide by cop. After all if you don't understand its ecological origins and don't drink alcohol it can be quite hard to get into the spirit of the winter festival magnifying the depressing effects of winter. I think this effect was also a trigger in the shooting of two police officers in New York City, US on the same day but in that case there were also substantially larger contributing factors. It has though since emerged that the Tours attacker was a keen online follower of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) so I might have to look at that again although there is a huge overlap between people with severe mental health problems and supporters of ISIL. In fact you could go so far as to say that around 98-99% of ISIL supporters have severe mental health problems.
The following day (22/12/14) a driver rammed his van into pedestrians in the French city of Dijon injuring 11. On a technical level this is very similar to the type of run-over terror attacks that have become frequent in Israel in the latter half of 2014 and we saw in Canada on October 20th (20/10/14) However despite the fact the driver also shouted Allah Akbar and claimed he was acting in support of the children of Palestine as far as I can tell he had no links to either Islam nor ISIL. However he has got very strong links with mental health services in France. Therefore his motivations could be something as incomprehensible as simply seeing news of the Tours incident on TV and deciding that it was a coded message from the lizard people that secretly control the world that he should also act.
Sadly though someone in the UK clearly got paranoid that the French had spotted something about the similar incidents in the US and had put on the Tours and Dijon incidents in order to have a coded discussion with the US. So the UK decided to try and muscle in on this imagined conversation by smashing a garbage truck ("bin lorry" locally) into pedestrians in and around Saint George's (A Turkish Crusader) Square in Glasgow, Scotland killing 6 and injuring 10.
Again on a technical level the St George's crash is exactly the same as a run-over terror attack. Added to that when I talk about Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Devices (VBIED's) being used by ISIL in Kobane I'm talking about a truck of that size packed with explosives. The route the truck took is very similar to the route a VBIED took from Turkey into Kobane on November 29th (29/11/14) along a road that is usually closed by the Turkish military. Also "bin" is commonly used in Arabic names to indicate "son of" or "originating from" - "Osama bin Laden" being probably the most famous example. Not being very good at Arabic many foreign fighters who have joined ISIL give themselves ridiculous Arab names. Therefore hearing about "Glasgow bin Lorry" you couldn't help but wonder if an ISIL moron was involved. Finally I strongly suspect that the UK intelligence services refer to the mechanism they set up to send no hopers to fight for ISIL as; "The Garbage Truck." If we're looking for suspects I would look closely at the drivers work colleagues particularly his shift supervisor because if you're dealing with someone whose obese, smokes and drinks too much inducing a cardiac arrest is just a matter of picking the right words at the right moment.
Shortly after the St George's crash another French driver smashed into a crowd of pedestrians in Nantes killing we now know 1 and injuring 9. On this occasion the driver also shouted Allah Akbar and not only appears to have attacked a Christmas market but also specifically targeted a stall selling mulled wine which is obvious haram in Islam. However it is not yet clear whether he was simply someone who was made very angry about the darkness and his own confusion over Christmas or whether he was a fully fledged supporter of ISIL who was angered by France's role in the US-led coalition which along with the Kurds is currently giving ISIL a very hard time of it.
This though is the problem with this type of lone-wolf, run-over attack. Even within Palestine no-one plans them or orders them instead they simply put the idea out there into the public consciousness in the hope something will happen. This is exactly what Al Sharpton was doing during his speech to the "Justice For All" march on December 13th (13/12/14) in which he smirked about different parts of the 'movement' embracing different methods while protesters in the New York City "Justice For All" march chanted; "What do we want?! Dead Cops! When do we want it?! Now!"
France is particularly vulnerable to this type of lone-wolf attack for a number of reasons. The main one of these is a lack of social cohesion caused by a lack of an effective urban development policy. Basically French city centres are occupied only by the rich with the poor being forced to live in suburbs on the outskirts. Pretty much every year these poor suburbs whose inhabitants are overwhelmingly black and often Muslims explode into violence and rioting. This problem has been made worse by some awful economic policies of French President Hollande which has sent unemployment and poverty soaring further damaging social cohesion and leading to the rise of the fascist National Front (FN) Party. Sadly just as Hollande realised his mistake and reversed his damaging economic policies the European Union (EU) decided that it wanted to go along with the US' plan to destroy the EU economy, sorry er, "Punish Russia for its aggression in Ukraine."
Added to these serious structural problems and FN's rampant Islamophobia France's involvement in fighting the new breed of Islamist in Mali and now Iraq has led to many of France's young, black Muslims to feel that their country doesn't want them and it at war with them. Seeing everyone busy sinning and celebrating an ostensibly Christian festival only adds to that feeling of isolation. It must be said though that France hasn't done itself any favours by being overly dramatic about Israel's treatment of the Palestinians in an effort to muscle it's way into peace negotiations. For example France has sponsered the Palestinians ill-concieved bid for statehood that it wants to bring before the United Nations Secuirty Council (UNSC) on Christmas Eve of all days.
I wish I could be more reassuring to the people of France but this seems set to continue with the French police today stopping a man armed with two shotguns from mounting another attack and the army being deployed to help maintain security. So basically what everyone's hoping for from Christmas this year is for US President Obama to finally grow the f*ck up and get his a*se into gear because ISIL should have already been defeated by now.
(Originally Posted) 17:20 on 23/12/14 (UK date).
Operation Featherweight: Month 5, Week 3, Day 1.
As it approaches its 100th day the Battle for Kobane/Ayn al-Arab is
still stuck firmly in an attrition phase. In the week since my last post
the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG) have continued to mount
patrols on all fronts periodically engaging with Islamic State of Iraq
and the Levant (ISIL) fighters killing 11, capturing small amounts of
weapons and ammunition and liberating the occasional fighting position.
On Thursday (18/12/14) ISIL fighters inside Kobane attempted to launch a fresh assault against the YPG on the southern front. This assault was led by two Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Devices (VBIED's/truck bombs) and backed by a tank. However after a night of fighting the YPG were able to repel this attack resulting in the deaths of 26 ISIL fighters and the capture of large amounts of ammunition. Sadly 1 YPG fighter lost his life in this battle.
In response to the ISIL assault the YPG launched their own offensive on Friday (19/12/14) against ISIL positions at the Yarmouk School from where Thursday's attack was launched. Although as far as I can tell this operation is still going on as the YPG consolidate their position it appears to have been a complete success with the YPG liberating ISIL positions in and around the school and pushing forward to the edge of the 48 neighbourhood which is the ISIL stronghold on the southern front. During this operation 21 ISIL fighters were killed including Abu Zahra who is the commander of the Chechen Jundullah Brigade. No YPG fighters lost their lives in the operation.
The YPG have also mounted operations against ISIL positions close to the cultural centre on the eastern front and conducted commando-style raids against ISIL in the villages surrounding Kobane - most notably Ko Ali. Crucially they have also manged to maintain control of the villages for Tarmik to the south-west and Helinj and Jalabiyah to the south-east cutting ISIL supply lines to Aleppo City and Raqqa respectively.
At this point I should mention that despite being a desert country in the depths of winter the weather in Syria can actually be both very wet and very cold. Therefore the first battle that everybody people is fighting at this time is the battle to stay warm and dry meaning that there is often a drop in the tempo of fighting. However the deteriorating conditions have spurred people into action in neighbouring Iraq.
You may remember that back in August 2014 ISIL overran dozens of Kurdish villages at the foot of the Shingal/Sinjar mountains. This forced 50-60,000 ethnic Kurds of the Yazidi religion to escape onto the mountain where they faced dehydration and starvation or face certain death at the hands of ISIL. After several weeks the pressure from the press corp became too much for US President Barack Obama to bear so he belatedly launched a military operation to prevent a genocide. After a month of relentless pressure Obama went on to expand the operation to allow it to go on the offensive against ISIL.
Sadly Obama then rapidly lost his nerve, lost interest and randomly started carrying out symbolic attacks against mysterious groups like the Khorasan Group in Syria instead.
On Wednesday (17/12/14) the US-led coalition finally got it together with the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga and the Iraqi military to break the siege in Sinjar.
At dawn on Wednesday some 8,000 Peshmerga who had assembled at Zumar which is just north of Mosul Dam around 50km (30 miles) north-west of Mosul City advanced west. By the following day they had liberated all the villages and cleared all the ISIL positions within the 700km^2 (420m^2) between Zumar and the city of Shingal/Sinjar. During these two day the Peshmerga were assisted by 98 coalition air-strikes which acting in a close air-support role destroyed more then 100 ISIL targets primarily made up of check-points, fighting positions and ground units.
On Friday (19/12/14) Peshmergas from Rabia which sits on the Syria border around 125km (75 miles) north-west of Mosul pushed north-east liberating the are between Sinjar and the border from ISIL. At the same time the YPG based in Syria along with Yazidi militia pushed up the mountains from Syria to link up with the advancing Peshmerga. This now establishes a wide corridor stretching all the way from the Iraqi Kurdish capital of Arbil to the edge of the YPG's Cizire canton at Serekanyie some 350km (210 miles) away. Unfortunately in the face of the Kurdish advances a large proportion of ISIL fighters have fled with weapons and equipment both into Syria and Mosul which ISIL's stronghold in Iraq. As the US-led coalition made no attempt to cut them down as they fled it is likely that they will now re-group in both areas.
Despite this tremendous success by the Kurds the operation suffered a major setback on Monday (15/12/14) when the Al Nusra Front (ANF) backed by the Free Men of Levant (FML) and other members of the Islamist Front (IF) grouping seized the Hamidiyeh and Wadi al-Deif bases in Idlib province from the Syrian government capturing tanks, armoured vehicles and lots of advanced weapons in the process. Although a loss by the Syrian government isn't really a concern of the coalition a gain by the Al Qaeda allied ANF should be because they are covered by the same United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution as ISIL and the fact that they have begun to work with the IF grouping suggests they are getting closer to getting over their ideological differences and allying themselves with ISIL.
Yesterday the US confirmed that 1,300 extra ground troops will be sent to Iraq in January. The timing of the announcement couldn't have come at a worse time because this week the US ground troops who are definitely not combat troops had their first taste of combat. Essentially a small group of around 100 US troops had been deployed to the Ain Al-Assad base which is around 90km (54 miles) west of Ramadi in Anbar province and around 200km (120 miles) west of the Iraqi capital Baghdad. On Sunday (14/12/14) ISIL attacked the base forcing the US-troops to open fire and call in air-strikes to repel the attack. It seems the attack was successfully repelled in just over two hours although the US is remaining so tight-lipped about possible casualties they still refusing to even acknowledge that the event took place.
(Originally Posted) 17:55 on 21/12/14 (UK date).
On Thursday (18/12/14) ISIL fighters inside Kobane attempted to launch a fresh assault against the YPG on the southern front. This assault was led by two Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Devices (VBIED's/truck bombs) and backed by a tank. However after a night of fighting the YPG were able to repel this attack resulting in the deaths of 26 ISIL fighters and the capture of large amounts of ammunition. Sadly 1 YPG fighter lost his life in this battle.
In response to the ISIL assault the YPG launched their own offensive on Friday (19/12/14) against ISIL positions at the Yarmouk School from where Thursday's attack was launched. Although as far as I can tell this operation is still going on as the YPG consolidate their position it appears to have been a complete success with the YPG liberating ISIL positions in and around the school and pushing forward to the edge of the 48 neighbourhood which is the ISIL stronghold on the southern front. During this operation 21 ISIL fighters were killed including Abu Zahra who is the commander of the Chechen Jundullah Brigade. No YPG fighters lost their lives in the operation.
The YPG have also mounted operations against ISIL positions close to the cultural centre on the eastern front and conducted commando-style raids against ISIL in the villages surrounding Kobane - most notably Ko Ali. Crucially they have also manged to maintain control of the villages for Tarmik to the south-west and Helinj and Jalabiyah to the south-east cutting ISIL supply lines to Aleppo City and Raqqa respectively.
At this point I should mention that despite being a desert country in the depths of winter the weather in Syria can actually be both very wet and very cold. Therefore the first battle that everybody people is fighting at this time is the battle to stay warm and dry meaning that there is often a drop in the tempo of fighting. However the deteriorating conditions have spurred people into action in neighbouring Iraq.
You may remember that back in August 2014 ISIL overran dozens of Kurdish villages at the foot of the Shingal/Sinjar mountains. This forced 50-60,000 ethnic Kurds of the Yazidi religion to escape onto the mountain where they faced dehydration and starvation or face certain death at the hands of ISIL. After several weeks the pressure from the press corp became too much for US President Barack Obama to bear so he belatedly launched a military operation to prevent a genocide. After a month of relentless pressure Obama went on to expand the operation to allow it to go on the offensive against ISIL.
Sadly Obama then rapidly lost his nerve, lost interest and randomly started carrying out symbolic attacks against mysterious groups like the Khorasan Group in Syria instead.
On Wednesday (17/12/14) the US-led coalition finally got it together with the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga and the Iraqi military to break the siege in Sinjar.
At dawn on Wednesday some 8,000 Peshmerga who had assembled at Zumar which is just north of Mosul Dam around 50km (30 miles) north-west of Mosul City advanced west. By the following day they had liberated all the villages and cleared all the ISIL positions within the 700km^2 (420m^2) between Zumar and the city of Shingal/Sinjar. During these two day the Peshmerga were assisted by 98 coalition air-strikes which acting in a close air-support role destroyed more then 100 ISIL targets primarily made up of check-points, fighting positions and ground units.
On Friday (19/12/14) Peshmergas from Rabia which sits on the Syria border around 125km (75 miles) north-west of Mosul pushed north-east liberating the are between Sinjar and the border from ISIL. At the same time the YPG based in Syria along with Yazidi militia pushed up the mountains from Syria to link up with the advancing Peshmerga. This now establishes a wide corridor stretching all the way from the Iraqi Kurdish capital of Arbil to the edge of the YPG's Cizire canton at Serekanyie some 350km (210 miles) away. Unfortunately in the face of the Kurdish advances a large proportion of ISIL fighters have fled with weapons and equipment both into Syria and Mosul which ISIL's stronghold in Iraq. As the US-led coalition made no attempt to cut them down as they fled it is likely that they will now re-group in both areas.
Despite this tremendous success by the Kurds the operation suffered a major setback on Monday (15/12/14) when the Al Nusra Front (ANF) backed by the Free Men of Levant (FML) and other members of the Islamist Front (IF) grouping seized the Hamidiyeh and Wadi al-Deif bases in Idlib province from the Syrian government capturing tanks, armoured vehicles and lots of advanced weapons in the process. Although a loss by the Syrian government isn't really a concern of the coalition a gain by the Al Qaeda allied ANF should be because they are covered by the same United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution as ISIL and the fact that they have begun to work with the IF grouping suggests they are getting closer to getting over their ideological differences and allying themselves with ISIL.
Yesterday the US confirmed that 1,300 extra ground troops will be sent to Iraq in January. The timing of the announcement couldn't have come at a worse time because this week the US ground troops who are definitely not combat troops had their first taste of combat. Essentially a small group of around 100 US troops had been deployed to the Ain Al-Assad base which is around 90km (54 miles) west of Ramadi in Anbar province and around 200km (120 miles) west of the Iraqi capital Baghdad. On Sunday (14/12/14) ISIL attacked the base forcing the US-troops to open fire and call in air-strikes to repel the attack. It seems the attack was successfully repelled in just over two hours although the US is remaining so tight-lipped about possible casualties they still refusing to even acknowledge that the event took place.
(Originally Posted) 17:55 on 21/12/14 (UK date).
Operation Featherweight: Month 5, Week 2, Day 3.
Before events in Australia got ahead of me this was intended to be a
continuation of my previous post that can be read here; http://100badones.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/operation-featherweight-month-5-week-2.html
Apart from the decision to take no action against Turkey for their material support for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and to send a further 1,300 ground troops to Iraq the main outcome from the December 3rd (3/12/14) meeting of the US-led coalition was to establish a Combined Joint Task Force (CJTF) for Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR) - the US' name for the operation. This brings all the nations with combat forces in the coalition together into, well, a joint task force.
This represent the beginning of the centralised command structure that I have been pressing for since the operation began. Although the exact details of how this particular CJTF will operate remain elusive it is the way that the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) members of the coalition (incl Australia) are used to working together. While all nations will be represented by senior officers in the command cell the setting up of a CJTF means that there is an overall commander who is responsible for identifying the jobs that need to be done and assigning forces to get them done. This should make the coalition more effective because it gets everybody moving in the same direction rather then charging around all doing their own thing.
However this is merely a step forward rather then the task being completed because although there is now a way to co-ordinate the forces in the coalition there still needs to be an over-riding strategic plan for them to carry out. For this we have to again look to US President Obama because he either still hasn't understood how a military operation functions or he has yet to come to terms with the fact that ISIL need to be defeated on the battlefield.
The bit I liked the most about this development though is that after choosing a logo featuring Arab-style swords CJTFOIR set up a Twitter account (@CJTFOIR). I appear to have been pre-emptively blocked from following this account which I suppose is a claim to fame of sorts.
Last Sunday (7/12/14) I was tempted to rush out a quick post before lunch explaining that while I wasn't posting I continuing to keep an eye on things and giving a quick update on the situation in Kobane/Ayn al-Arab. However with my PC finally dying a death I was prevented from doing so. This seems to have been for the best because on Sunday afternoon the Israeli Air Force (IAF) carried out air-strikes against Syrian government positions at the international airport in the capital Damascus and a military airbase in the town of Dimas which is around 23km (14 miles) north-west of Damascus and around 5km (3 miles) from the border with Lebanon.
In 1967 Syria declared war on Israel during what is known as the Six-Day War. As the name suggests Israel rapidly won this war and occupied parts of the Syrian Golan Heights. Due to that occupation being unresolved a state of war still exists between Israel and Syria which means that these Israeli air-strikes against the Syrian government were entirely lawful. The target of these strikes appear to have been stores of and convoys moving S-3000 anti-aircraft missiles for the Syrian government to the Lebanon based group Hezbollah.
It is well established that Hezbollah are now fighting in Syria on the side of the Syrian government. Although this is an ideological allegiance that goes back decades it is also well established that Hezbollah are being compensated for their efforts with access to military-grade rockets from the Syrian government arsenal. Therefore this type of weapons shipment going back and forth is a pretty regular occurrence. However the S-3000 missile is a much more serious piece of equipment then anything Hezbollah currently has at their disposal. For example if the missiles had been deployed rather then loaded on the back of trucks they would have been more then capable of shooting down the IAF aircraft that destroyed them. I dread to think what they would do to a commercial airliner.
Therefore it is extremely likely that this threat and an opportunity to eliminate presented itself to the Israelis so they took it.
However whilst the strikes were going on the Saban conference taking place in Washington D.C, US. This is an annual conference on middle-eastern affairs that the US think-tank the Brookings Institute had rather unhelpfully decided to host slap-bang in the middle of COP20. Obviously the fight against ISIL and international sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program were high on the agenda. While I'm certainly not going to account for every political view held and sentence uttered in Israel particularly during an election campaign in the past I have got the impression that when Israel has demanded action on Iran's nuclear program they were in fact referring to Iran's supply of conventional weapons to Hezbollah. Therefore it is possible these strikes were timed to point out that US President Obama may be taking things a little too literally in his efforts to end Iran's nuclear program which even the Israelis describe as an existential threat.
These Israeli strikes though were particularly embarrassing for Syria's Sunni-Arab insurgent groups who take great pride in their hatred of Jews and their desire to destroy Israel. Earlier on Sunday the United Nations Disengagement Observer Forces (UNDOF) which monitors the Golan Heights presented a report to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) detailing co-operation between the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) and the insurgents.
For the most part this involved allowing Syrian civilians to be treated in Israeli hospitals but there was also evidence of insurgents being allowed to cross into the Israeli occupied areas to receive medical treatment and to accompany their wounded comrades. I should point out that this is predominately humanitarian assistance and the IDF troops involved were from the Golani Brigades which was set up specifically to guard the border. That means that while the Golani Brigades are elite fighers they are also highly skilled at peacekeeping which this seems to have been part of.
However UNDOF also detailed meetings between people in civilian dress who were being guarded by members of the IDF and the insurgents. During several of these meetings mysterious boxes were handed by what we assume to be Israeli spies to the insurgents. These packages were very noticeably indistinct however they could well have contained the type of communication equipment used to identify ground targets for air-strikes.
Therefore it seems that Syria's Sunni-Arab insurgents ideological commitments are certainly negotiable, for the right price.
(Originally Posted) 18:20 on 16/12/14 (UK date).
Apart from the decision to take no action against Turkey for their material support for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and to send a further 1,300 ground troops to Iraq the main outcome from the December 3rd (3/12/14) meeting of the US-led coalition was to establish a Combined Joint Task Force (CJTF) for Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR) - the US' name for the operation. This brings all the nations with combat forces in the coalition together into, well, a joint task force.
This represent the beginning of the centralised command structure that I have been pressing for since the operation began. Although the exact details of how this particular CJTF will operate remain elusive it is the way that the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) members of the coalition (incl Australia) are used to working together. While all nations will be represented by senior officers in the command cell the setting up of a CJTF means that there is an overall commander who is responsible for identifying the jobs that need to be done and assigning forces to get them done. This should make the coalition more effective because it gets everybody moving in the same direction rather then charging around all doing their own thing.
However this is merely a step forward rather then the task being completed because although there is now a way to co-ordinate the forces in the coalition there still needs to be an over-riding strategic plan for them to carry out. For this we have to again look to US President Obama because he either still hasn't understood how a military operation functions or he has yet to come to terms with the fact that ISIL need to be defeated on the battlefield.
The bit I liked the most about this development though is that after choosing a logo featuring Arab-style swords CJTFOIR set up a Twitter account (@CJTFOIR). I appear to have been pre-emptively blocked from following this account which I suppose is a claim to fame of sorts.
Last Sunday (7/12/14) I was tempted to rush out a quick post before lunch explaining that while I wasn't posting I continuing to keep an eye on things and giving a quick update on the situation in Kobane/Ayn al-Arab. However with my PC finally dying a death I was prevented from doing so. This seems to have been for the best because on Sunday afternoon the Israeli Air Force (IAF) carried out air-strikes against Syrian government positions at the international airport in the capital Damascus and a military airbase in the town of Dimas which is around 23km (14 miles) north-west of Damascus and around 5km (3 miles) from the border with Lebanon.
In 1967 Syria declared war on Israel during what is known as the Six-Day War. As the name suggests Israel rapidly won this war and occupied parts of the Syrian Golan Heights. Due to that occupation being unresolved a state of war still exists between Israel and Syria which means that these Israeli air-strikes against the Syrian government were entirely lawful. The target of these strikes appear to have been stores of and convoys moving S-3000 anti-aircraft missiles for the Syrian government to the Lebanon based group Hezbollah.
It is well established that Hezbollah are now fighting in Syria on the side of the Syrian government. Although this is an ideological allegiance that goes back decades it is also well established that Hezbollah are being compensated for their efforts with access to military-grade rockets from the Syrian government arsenal. Therefore this type of weapons shipment going back and forth is a pretty regular occurrence. However the S-3000 missile is a much more serious piece of equipment then anything Hezbollah currently has at their disposal. For example if the missiles had been deployed rather then loaded on the back of trucks they would have been more then capable of shooting down the IAF aircraft that destroyed them. I dread to think what they would do to a commercial airliner.
Therefore it is extremely likely that this threat and an opportunity to eliminate presented itself to the Israelis so they took it.
However whilst the strikes were going on the Saban conference taking place in Washington D.C, US. This is an annual conference on middle-eastern affairs that the US think-tank the Brookings Institute had rather unhelpfully decided to host slap-bang in the middle of COP20. Obviously the fight against ISIL and international sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program were high on the agenda. While I'm certainly not going to account for every political view held and sentence uttered in Israel particularly during an election campaign in the past I have got the impression that when Israel has demanded action on Iran's nuclear program they were in fact referring to Iran's supply of conventional weapons to Hezbollah. Therefore it is possible these strikes were timed to point out that US President Obama may be taking things a little too literally in his efforts to end Iran's nuclear program which even the Israelis describe as an existential threat.
These Israeli strikes though were particularly embarrassing for Syria's Sunni-Arab insurgent groups who take great pride in their hatred of Jews and their desire to destroy Israel. Earlier on Sunday the United Nations Disengagement Observer Forces (UNDOF) which monitors the Golan Heights presented a report to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) detailing co-operation between the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) and the insurgents.
For the most part this involved allowing Syrian civilians to be treated in Israeli hospitals but there was also evidence of insurgents being allowed to cross into the Israeli occupied areas to receive medical treatment and to accompany their wounded comrades. I should point out that this is predominately humanitarian assistance and the IDF troops involved were from the Golani Brigades which was set up specifically to guard the border. That means that while the Golani Brigades are elite fighers they are also highly skilled at peacekeeping which this seems to have been part of.
However UNDOF also detailed meetings between people in civilian dress who were being guarded by members of the IDF and the insurgents. During several of these meetings mysterious boxes were handed by what we assume to be Israeli spies to the insurgents. These packages were very noticeably indistinct however they could well have contained the type of communication equipment used to identify ground targets for air-strikes.
Therefore it seems that Syria's Sunni-Arab insurgents ideological commitments are certainly negotiable, for the right price.
(Originally Posted) 18:20 on 16/12/14 (UK date).
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